Tarboo-Dabob… how can you clearcut a place with such a pretty name?

This is a hard one to figure, but it seems like the state DNR’s got some conflicting aims in a place called Tarboo-Dabob Bay, on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula near the north end of Hood Canal.

Bald eagles are plentiful at Tarboo-Dabob
Photo/pdphoto.org

On the one hand, DNR’s Natural Heritage Program is evaluating whether to create a 2,000-acre Natural Resource Conservation Area around the bay — with some of the nicer remaining big salt marshes that nourish the Puget Sound food chain, a place rich in salmon and oysters and eagles.

On the other hand, the folks at DNR who authorize cutting trees on state lands to benefit schools and other governmental functions really want to go ahead with a 60-acre clearcut in the area.

Peter Bahls, director of the Northwest Watershed Institute in Port Townsend, tells me the scene at the Board of Natural Resources yesterday was an interesting one: The Jefferson County Commission, environmentalists, Taylor Shellfish and others in the “no” camp got 10 minutes to state their objections. Then the staff got two hours to explain why this was Really A Good Thing. Said Bahls:

We basically poked a hole in a hornet’s nest.

The Natural Resources board went along with the recommendations of the timber-cutting staff under Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland.